


long story short

by pearlypersephone



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Background Wolfstar, F/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), jily, maybe smut idk yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29150013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlypersephone/pseuds/pearlypersephone
Summary: Seventh year is starting and Lily has finally become Head Girl. Only problem is pain in her ass James Potter is the new Head Boy. How does Lily cope with her Hogwarts years coming to an end, and how does she cope with the fact that ever since the year started, she can't stop thinking about how hot James has become.Yet another James and Lily get together story.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 8





	1. The Train

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody! This is the first ever fan fiction that I've published so please be kind. My pacing will probably be a little wack, but I hope you enjoy anyway. Please comment any feedback! Also warning: I'm American not British so my slang may be inconsistent. :)

“Lily you have plenty of time to say goodbye to us before the train leaves,” Lily’s mother rested her hand on Lily’s shoulder. Lily stood on the crowded platform 9 ¾ with her parents. Her sister, Petunia, couldn’t be bothered to come see her off.

  
“Mom, I’m Head Girl. I need to get to the prefects compartment to get ready for the first meeting of the year,” Lily stubbornly replied.

  
“Daphne, let her go. We’ll see her at Christmas,” Lily’s father said. He reached over to Lily for a hug.

  
“All right,” Lily’s mom conceded,”But remember to write to us every week, darling.”

  
Lily nodded, “Of course I will, I love you.” Lily hugged her mom then hurriedly walked onto the train as she waved goodbye. She hadn’t even said hello to her friends yet, but she was desperate to get to the prefects compartment. She was too nervous and excited to do anything but prepare.

  
Lily arrived in the familiar prefects compartment that she had had meetings in since the first train ride her fifth year. It was larger than the normal compartments on the train and each wall was lined with a cushioned bench. Lily put her bag down on the bench at the front of the compartment and pulled out the extensive flash cards she made. She paced around the compartment while she reviewed her notes. Lily had worked hard for this role, and she was not gonna make a fool of herself on the first day.

  
“You have flashcards? I didn’t know we had to prepare a speech,” a voice interrupted Lily’s focus. She looked up at the door way and saw the one and only James Potter. The James Potter who had been a pain in her ass for years. Who flirted with her constantly, even though she clearly hated his guts. The James Potter who used to bully her ex-best friend The James Potter who stood right in front of her, looking like the hottest man she had ever seen.

  
Despite her years of trying to ignore it, Lily couldn’t lie to herself and say James Potter wasn’t attractive. But that was before the past summer. A summer where James must have spent every waking moment exercising by playing quidditch. Because now, looking at James, she had to admit, he was beautiful. He had to have grown at least two inches over the summer, making him tower over her barely 5’5” body. And his jaw was even more defined than before. It made Lily wonder if he was that toned in other places. Places covered up by his clo-

  
“What are you doing here?” Lily blurted out to try and stop the direction her thoughts were going.

  
“Um, I’m the new Head Boy,” James pointed at the red pin on his robes to show his was telling the truth. He nervously combed his hand through his shaggy brown hair.

  
“What? You weren’t even a prefect!”

  
“Yeah. If we didn’t think Dumbledore was looney before this surely confirms it,” James shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant, but failing. He clearly was nervous Lily was gonna start yelling at him for ruining her time as Headgirl. “Clearly I’m already failing at this job if you have a whole speech planned and I got nothing.” James gestured to the flashcards in Lily’s hand.

  
Blushing, Lily shoved the flashcards in her bag. Embarrassed at having been caught practicing for the meeting, she sat down to make herself smaller, “It’s not a speech, they’re just notes,” Lily blushed some more as she felt a strange urge to comfort his obvious nerves. “At least you got here early. Last year I was the first one here, and Frank and Alice showed up ten minutes late with their clothes mysteriously rumpled.”

  
James laughed at the quip about the notable Head couple, and sat down next to Lily, “I’m just nervous for this. I have no experience. And like you’ve made it pretty clear in the past, I’m kind of a bastard.”

  
Lily gave a small laugh, but she couldn’t look into those warm hazel eyes. She turned her gaze down to her lap, “Well, you might not have any experience as a prefect, but you have been Quidditch Captain. And I wouldn’t say you’re a bastard now. I mean we were kind of friends last year.”

  
“Evans, I have no idea what funky thing you ate, but this thing you are trying, being nice to me, is strange. I don’t like it. What’s going on?”

  
Lily couldn’t just tell him that she blamed the whole interaction on how beautiful his eyes were. She struggled to find something to say. She was saved by the door opening and the sight of prefects walking in. The meeting was ready to start.

♠♠♠

Throughout the prefect meeting Lily could not stop thinking about her conversation with James. He was right. Her being nice to him was strange. Unnatural even. She couldn’t start liking him just because he grew a few inches over the summer. This was why Lily promptly avoided James after the meeting by hurrying out the door to find her friends’ compartment.

  
Lily found her friends lounging in a compartment, stuffing their faces with candy from the trolley. Marlene had her arms wrapped around Dorcas while Mary complained about their PDA.

  
“Finally! Lily Evans graces us with her presence,” Marlene left Dorcas on the bench to hug Lily in the doorway. The two separated and Lily joined Mary on her bench.

  
“We aren’t even at Hogwarts yet and you are already leaving us for Head duties,” Mary teased. “Anyway, who’s the Head Boy? Is he cute?”

  
Lily avoided her gaze, “It’s Potter.” The girls gasped.

  
“James is Head Boy? Are you serious?” Dorcas leaned towards Lily, eyes wide.

  
“Oh my god we are never gonna hear the end of this. All day every day is gonna be ‘James this’ and ‘James that’,” Mary groaned.

  
“I, for one, think this is an amazing thing,” Marlene announced, as she tried to stand up on her bench like she was about to give a big speech.

  
“God, why?” Dorcas whined as she pulled her girlfriend back down.

“This forced proximity will ensure that sometime this year, Lily will finally get boned by James Potter!”

  
“What?” Lily shrieked as the other girls laughed with Marlene.

  
“Come on, Lily. He has liked you forever. I say you will end up snogging him by October,” Marlene replied.

  
Dorcas objected, “You are giving Lily way too much credit. I say she won’t until Valentine’s. She’ll get jealous of whatever girl James takes to Hogsmeade to distract from his lonely life without Lily, and Lily will snog him in Madam Puddifoot’s right in front of his date.”

  
The girls laughed, including Lily, however, reluctantly. “Oh no, you girls clearly didn’t see him on the platform this morning,” said Mary. “He has impossibly gotten even fitter. I don’t think she’ll last a day without snogging him.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys. Sorry I planned to update a week after the first chapter, but I got busy. Tomorrow I get my wisdom teeth pulled so I wanted to get something written before I am put in pain. Enjoy!

Today was Lily’s first day of classes while being Head Girl, and she was already running late to her first class.

She and Marlene had started to leave the Great Hall so they could get to Potions early and get first pick of the seats, but before they could leave Lily was stopped by two first year girls who did not know the way to Transfiguration. Being the wonderful Head Girl she was, Lily offered to walk the two girls to their class while pulling along Marlene to accompany her.

The two young girls, Bailey and Willa, had quite short legs and the walk to Transfiguration took longer than expected. Instead of being the first ones to Potions, like Lily and Marlene had planned, they both arrived to class a few seconds before they would have been considered late.

Lily and Marlene were the last to arrive which was made evident when they looked around the room to see very few options for a place to sit. Lily looked to find her ex-best friend Severus staring at her like he expected her to sit down and join him at his table with his blood purist friends, Mulciber and Avery. Lily scoffed internally. She was done with the years of Severus pretending to be her friend while he tried to control who she hung out with and secretly believed that she was a mudblood.

Lily turned from him to look at her other options. Two empty stools sat at a table with James, Sirius, and Remus.

“All right, Evans? Looks like you girls will have to sit with us unless you’d prefer to sit with Snivellus over there,” James said to her.

Lily quickly climbed onto one of the stools to show how much she did not want to sit with Severus. Marlene joined Lily by sitting on the last stool at the table.

“Evans, one day as Head Girl and you are already being a bad influence. Late to your first class? I can’t believe it. Wait til Dumbledore hears about this,” said James.

“As a matter of fact, Potter, I was busy with duties,” Lily retorted. She knew James was only teasing her, but she couldn’t help being offended at the suggestion that she was failing her duties. “How about you, have you done any of your head duties?”

“Where’s Peter?” Marlene interrupted their bickering. “It’s odd to see your group lacking a member.”

“Peter never really liked Potions. He’s at Care of Magical Creatures instead,” Sirius responded. “Where’s the rest of your group?”

“They decided they were done with Potions and ‘watching me suck up to Slughorn’,” Lily said while using air quotes.

“You don’t need to suck up to Slughorn,” said James. “You can do no wrong in Slughorn’s eyes at this point.”

“Yeah. Wonder how many times she had to suck him off to achieve that,” Sirius joked.

The response to Sirius's gross joke was James whacking Sirius on the back of the head while Lily kicked his shin under the table.

“Hey! It was just a joke!”

“Well it wasn’t funny,” Lily gritted out. Her face had gone a shade of scarlet.

Before Lily could injure Sirius anymore, Slughorn came out from the back to welcome the students to the new year and the even harder load of classes they now had. He ended the introduction with an explanation about the potion they had to make before class ended.

Lily went to the ingredients closet to get what she needed for the potion and returned to her seat across from James. James smirked up at her before he looked down at his book to read the instructions. James then did something that made her heart stop.

James, most likely subconsciously, started to roll his sleeves up. His white sleeves were pulled up to his elbows exposing his forearms. His toned, tanned, beautiful forearms. Lily couldn’t help thanking God for giving him his love for quidditch, which gave him those arms.

Marlene leaned to Lily and whispered in her ear “You’re staring.”

Lily’s pale face turned scarlett yet again. She turned her gaze away from James and fussed with her ingredients, trying to ignore the fact that she had been staring at James and that she had also been caught.

♣♣♣

“You guys won’t believe what happened in Potions today,” Marlene announced to Mary and Dorcas.

The four girls were in their dorm getting ready for bed. Lily groaned into her pillow. She shouldn’t have hoped that Marlene would forget about the incident in Potions.

“God, no. Marlene shut up.” Lily threw her pillow at Marlene, which the quidditch star easily dodged.

Marlene continued on despite her friend's protests, “Lily was lusting after James so hard during class. It looked like she wanted to shag him right there on the table.”

Mary and Dorcas excitedly gasped.

“Marlene what the fuck don’t you understand about shutting up.” Lily wasn’t actually mad at Marlene. She was just annoyed that they would now be having this conversation. A conversation Lily really did not want to have.

“Well if I had to see your bedroom eyes as you stared at James’s arms, I get to give some pay back.”

Mary ran over to Lily and joined her on her bed, “Does this mean what I think it means? You will finally confess that you have a crush on James?”

Lily had never heard such an absurd idea in her life. “Woah, woah, woah. I do not have a crush on James,” Lily claimed, but all the three girls gave her were disbelieving looks.

Dorcas climbed onto Marlene’s bed that sat next to Lily’s. “Lily, James has been in love with you for years. He would be so good to you, why wouldn’t you want to shag him? And most importantly, he is so freaking fit. I’m not attracted to guys, and even I can see it!”

Lily sighed, “Fine. I’ll admit that I have noticed this year that he has gotten quite fit, but that does not mean I have a crush on him or that I want to shag him. Also, James is not in love with me.”

All of her friends looked at Lily like she was crazy. Lily avoided their gazing by pretending she was suddenly deeply invested in brushing her hair.

“Okay, Lily!” Marlene’s frustration in her friend clearly showing. “I will let you claim you have no romantic feelings towards James, but please in our last year of school, will you stop insisting you don’t like James. I know James was an arse once, but he is a good guy. Don’t let James pre-fifth year incident affect your feelings of James now.”

“Fine,” Lily gave up in her insistence.

“By the way, Mary you lost the bet already. You owe each of us a galleon.”

“Oh, come on! It wasn’t a really bet. I was joking!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make this longer than last chapter but that did not actually happen. Hopefully as I get more used to writing, I'll get better at writing longer chapters.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this was kind of short. I'll try to write longer chapters as I get more comfortable!


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